Robin_D_Calm wrote:You talk about "manufacturing consent" and "digital stakes" because you have the luxury of safety. We are a sheltered child of the modern age playing at being "hard" while sitting in a climate-controlled room.
Nothing has changed? Go back to 1000 BCE. There is no "propaganda" there, only the cold edge of bronze. Imagine being dragged into a clearing because your neighbor wants your grain. There is no trial, no "worthy victim" narrative, just a blunt instrument caving in your skull while you scream into the dirt.
You would be left to rot in a shallow trench, your body bloating in the sun, eyes picked out by crows before your blood even dries. No one will record your "rebellion." No one will remember your name. You aren’t a "witch" fighting the system; you are meat. You are a biological accident in a world that views your agony as background noise.
The "raw cruelty" you romanticize from behind a screen would break you in seconds. You don't live in a cycle of sacrifice—you live in a padded cell of civilization so secure that you’ve forgotten what real terror feels like.
Yes, nothing has changed. Today we call that justice "sueing" or "destroying reputation". If laws were removed, we'd go right back to a different form a justice yes and - if we're using your example, instead of demonizing them as random people, what if it was a cleric that the grain was stolen from? Would the cleric not instead, share his grain and educate the starving man so he may grow his own grain? What I'm saying is your narrative serves your nihilistic frame and an apparent cope of meaninglessness (a modern problem).
feel free to believe whatever headcanon you've got there if that's what makes you happy
